Bike Lane FAIL: Warning! Construction Signs Ahead

30Oct

Sigh. What to you call signs warning of danger that ARE the danger? From what I’ve seen lately it’s standard operating procedure all over town, despite the guidelines from the US Federal Highway Administration. I could write something clever or get fired up for a rant, but I just don’t have the energy today. Sigh.

Do construction crews ever consider putting signs off the roadway instead of in the middle of the bike lane?

Riding in Google-land on the weekend, the bike lane was blocked by a “share the road” sign.

So we rode around the sign and found a second warning sign about 200 feet further down.

In another 200 feet we finally reached the “construction zone”. Cones were left in the lane for no reason.

This lovely pair was near the Caltrain station in downtown Mountain View, a busy area in the morning.

More of the same on Charleston Road in Palo Alto. You have to merge left as the cars merge right. Not safe.

With traffic going 45 mph on Central Expressway, it’s a good thing this detour sign is small.

8 responses to “Bike Lane FAIL: Warning! Construction Signs Ahead”

Bike to Work Day 2007 — shoulder on Central Expressway near Rengstorff was completely blocked by tree trimming crews. They coulda picked a better day to do that, I think.

Have you had the pleasure of biking down Tasman by the new 49ers stadium just north of Great America? Bike lane blocked off for construction vehicle access, with sharrows (how nice of them) in the right lane. A little dicey during commute time.

I’d be happy if the police knew it was Bike to Work Day. The maintenance crews planning around it? That would be amazing. I mean it’s not like bikes are baseball or football.

I haven’t ridden down Tasman in a while. But I used to take Tasman from 1st Street to the San Tomas Aquino trail when I used to ride the whole way to work a few years ago. Is the stadium between the creek and Great America? Or between the creek and the RR tracks?

I’ve actually stopped at construction crews and complained about this, as well as manually moving signs out of the way. It would be ironic to put “warning: signs in bike lane” signs in the same location.

Nearly 32,000 Americans die in car crashes annually. 80% of car crashes are PREVENTABLE. If the TOASTER was killing that many people we'd think it was ridiculous. We'd un-plug it and say, let's Fix The Toaster.